


The Coil Tightens

by ab2fsycho



Series: Hold My Tea and Watch This [27]
Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Bunny why, M/M, Mother Nature is a bitch, bunny - Freeform, but we like it, dammit Pitch, oh Jack, why do you have feelings Bunny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 05:49:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ab2fsycho/pseuds/ab2fsycho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack begins to notice some things about Pitch, and Sera takes a brief interest in what the results of these noticed things might be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Coil Tightens

The journey was exhausting. The climate was uncomfortable. The tension throughout the group was palpable. The person leading the operation at the time was impossible to work with, speak to, or keep up with, and the one person Pitch felt comfortable with wasn’t talking to him. Pitch reasoned it was nervousness. Jack hadn’t been wholly himself since the encounter with the plague spirits. He also suspected the anxiety stemmed from the impending fight with the end bringer. Pitch kept catching glimpses of the boy’s guilt whenever he made eye contact with him, although Pitch didn’t know what the winter spirit could possibly feel guilty for. In time, he would know. That’s how Pitch operated.

But it was the suspicion in Jack’s gaze that struck a nerve with the Nightmare King. Something kicked in his chest whenever he received that look, and it reminded him of the fog that had overcome him at the beginning. The beginning of this relationship started with an odd feeling within him and now something similar was happening again. What could that possibly mean?

Pitch never really liked change. Change often meant the worst for him. Jack had been an exception on more than one occasion. He hoped the boy stuck to that trend.

But Jack had always been talented at wrecking his best laid plans.



The group continued without stopping, Mother Nature leaping from tree to tree as she led them to their destination. Neither she nor those older than her could deny the pressure on the troupe. It wasn’t just the pressure of what they were setting out to do, the weight of responsibility. It wasn’t just the tension amongst certain group members that caused the pressure. It took everything she had not to look to Bunny. Every now and then, when they had a spare moment, he would give her a reassuring glance or a smile that reminded her of better days. But she would die before she returned those glances, for that would be admitting that she was glad to see him again. She’d already shown him too much. The same went for . . . him. She would never let him find out that his presence greatly threw her off her game.

Plus, he had his own onus weighing down on him. A pinprick of emotion sparked inside of her at the way the baby Guardian was looking at him, but she squashed it before she allowed herself to recognize it. She didn’t want to feel for these people. Not again. Feeling for them never bode well for her.

No, the weight was more. She felt movement. She felt revival. She felt an influx of power that left her weary. She almost felt the same sense of weakness coming off the Guardians. She’d only known one creature capable of wielding this much energy, and it had taken everything in her power to bind and imprison him.

Sera blinked as she leapt to another tree, struggling with those memories. She struggled not to think in general, most days. But being alone, she’d always had plenty of time to think, and all she could think about was how everything usually came crashing down when the moon decided to open its big mouth. Centuries of silence and she didn’t even get am ‘I’m sorry’ from him. No, she only got an ‘S.O.S,’ a plea to save his precious humans once again.

The Guardians can think that she entered into this deal because she cared for the world or whatever if they wanted to. She was more begrudging than that. This was a matter of settling old business, and feelings couldn’t cloud her mind if this was going to work. She needed to get this over with and get back to her life. Alone. So she shut out her thoughts and continued onward.



There were times where Jack was kind of glad to have Rin. He was very honest for something that Jack had once viewed as just dark and manipulative. There were times where the ingrate was helpful to Jack and Pitch.

“I don’t see why you don’t just kick him where the sun doesn’t shine and force him to spill everything.” This was not one of those times.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Jack whispered. He didn’t need to add that the sun never shone on Pitch anyway. Well . . . if Pitch had any say in it, it didn’t.

“Did you say something, mate?” Bunny asked. Jack shook his head quickly.

“Sure it works that way! Things don’t have to be complex or complicated all the time. The two of you sure do make it complex and complicated, that’s for sure.”

“Enough out of the peanut gallery,” Jack grumbled through gritted teeth.

“You’re talking to the Fearling again, aren’t you?” Jack just gave Bunny a tired look and sighed. Had he any energy, he would be riding the wind right now. Out of earshot. But Jack didn’t really have that kind of energy. He and the rest of the group seemed to be more exhausted than usual.

“You’re not getting anywhere by being quiet,” Rin finalized before the buzzing in Jack’s head subsided.

Jack didn’t want to think about what Rin was suggesting. A confrontation with Pitch wouldn’t be very smart considering the timing. However, Jack really did want to know what had happened amongst the Guardians, Sera, and Pitch. Only days ago did he become aware that there were other Guardians aside from the five here. He’d known Pitch and the Guardians had fought before, but hadn’t considered that that fight may have been a full-scale war. There was so much he didn’t know, and the only person who could fill in the smaller details was Pitch. More than anything, Jack just wanted to know why Pitch hadn’t bothered mentioning that he’d had family or how he’d lost them. It wasn’t like Jack was unaccustomed to that sort of loss. Jack knew Pitch was a private creature. It was amazing that he was willing to even sleep around Jack. But Pitch should know that Jack . . . .

Of course. He didn’t know that Jack wouldn’t hurt him. One look at the Nightmare King’s injuries from this relationship and Jack knew that he wasn’t going to get an easy answer from the Boogeyman. He was still a Guardian. Still an enemy. Pitch might as well be physically unable to trust him.

That realization hurt more than Jack thought it would. Pitch didn’t trust him. What right did Jack have to ask for that trust, though?

“You trust him. Isn’t that enough?” Rin returned full force.

“Please shut up. You’re not helping.”

“Mate, I hate to break it to ya, but you’re gettin’ weird over there,” Bunny added.

“You’re not helping either,” Jack muttered. No one was helping. They were only contributing to the twisting sensation in his chest. He really didn’t need this right now. He really, really just needed to not have doubts in Pitch, get this over with, and go home. He could not afford to feel this petty over something.

“This isn’t petty! Would you listen to yourself?” Rin wasn’t letting up, his buzzing growing louder.

“After all he’s done? I can wait a little longer,” Jack whispered as quiet as he could. He sincerely hoped no one heard him, just as he sincerely hoped that he would eventually believe his own words.

“Stop,” his Boogeyman spoke from beside him. He hadn’t realized the kangaroo and the Nightmare King had traded places whilst walking.

Jack exhaled louder than he’d done with Bunny, wondering just how much of the Rin’s conversation the Nightmare King could hear. “Stop what?”

Of course, if he could hear it, Pitch was still very good at not letting onto it. Damn him. “That guilt. That . . . sadness. It’s—.”

“It’s what? Uncomfortable? I’m sorry, but I can’t stop feeling just because it puts a bad taste in your mouth.”

“Nice!” Rin chimed in.

“Shut up, you.”

As soon as the words fled his mouth, he realized just how quiet the forest had become. Moreover, he realized the gang had stopped moving. He looked around, the silence dissolving his current state of mind. Not even the hundreds of animals he didn’t know the names of spoke. It was dead quiet. Panic took its place in the forefront of Jack’s head and Rin’s humming grew four times louder. Raising his staff, he prepared for what he thought was coming.

He thought right. Plague spirits surged from the canopy and surrounded the Guardians, Pitch, and Sera. Each gripped their weapons tightly and jumped into battle. Sera swung her hammer in warning, her arrows ineffective against the skeletal structures of the Huecuvus. Tooth and North stuck together with their swords, Bunny readying his egg bombs and boomerangs as Sandy prepped his whips. Pitch summoned his scythe and stayed close to Jack, and Jack stayed close to him. Their hearts hammered in their throats, but they soon realized the creatures weren’t attacking. They were just enveloping them to prevent escape.

Once the group was surrounded, the Guardians plus two forming a circle so that no side was unguarded, a plague spirit spoke shrilly. “The end bringer sends a message.”

Another spoke, “He says ‘hello Mother Gaia.’”

“Oh how touching,” Sera whispered half-heartedly.

“Out of respect, he warns that you should turn back the way you came.”

“Now he shows respect,” Bunny grumbled, his paws twitching around the boomerangs.

“Only for Mother dear,” a third interrupted. “You Guardians will still meet your end. Our master is not foolish enough to try to end nature personified.”

“Yet,” the first spat.

“As comforting as that may be, I can’t allow him to break free from his prison,” Sera retorted. There was a note in her voice that made Jack pause to pay attention to her expression. It was hardened, but he recognized that face. He saw it every time Pitch was hiding something from him.

The Huecuvus cackled. Then another said, “His bonds have never been this loose before. Soon he will devour your world, just as the Man in the Moon forewarned.”

“And you won’t be able to stop him this time, Mother—.”

Before the creature could finish its sentence, Sera’s hammer came crashing down on its head. The other plague spirits screeched as they watched their fellow devotee shatter. Sera lifted her hammer and gestured to them. “Send him this message: I will not sit back and allow him to chew his way out of his prison and burn a path across the earth. This is not the world’s end. This is his end.” Jack shuddered. That rage definitely came from Pitch.

“Then you will burn with him,” several answered in unison. The Guardians and Pitch tensed as the plague spirits started closing in on them.

To Jack’s astonishment, Sera snorted at the threat. “Burn me, then. It’ll be like a volcano erupting on a forest. I’ll just come back stronger and more powerful than before.”

“You need believers to have that kind of power,” a plague spirit countered.

“No you don’t, or else fear would have died centuries ago,” Pitch remarked. 

Sera blinked at his defense of her, but didn’t acknowledge him any further. “And I couldn’t lose believers if I tried,” she muttered.

“You will not win!”

“Try me!” she hissed, pupils shrinking as she bore her fangs.

The plague spirits fell upon them then. Jack lost sight of the others and got separated from Pitch as he shot bolts of ice at any skeletal being in sight. The ice was effective most of the time, shattering the creatures on impact. However, there was an overwhelming number of them. Panic rose in him, and the thrumming in the back of his head became so distracting that the spirits were managing to land some blows now. He hadn’t realized that he was still slightly sore in the gut until two managed to tackle him. He froze them solid rather hastily.

“Let me out, Jack!” Rin pleaded.

“Not yet,” Jack growled, throwing the deteriorating carcasses off of him. The onslaught had slowed, and he took the chance to leap onto the wind and gain higher ground. He tried to regain some semblance of where everyone was. He couldn’t see Pitch. Where was he?

“He’s fine. Shadow jumping and crap, now let me out!” Rin demanded.

“Not. Yet!” Jack reiterated as more plague spirits emerged from the woods. Something else emerged with them. “No . . . ,” Jack uttered, his eyes widening. His body trembled at the sight of them, remembering how his last chance meeting with them had gone.

Monkey men were supposed to be extinct, and yet here they were. Tooth looked just as horrified as he felt. There was no way Jack could fight them. Not here. Not yet. Not—.

He forgot all of his previous anxieties over their relationship as Jack realized he really needed Pitch right then. Unfortunately, all he had was Rin. “Now, Jack!”

He didn’t think twice. “Rin, you have my permission.” And Jack was gone.



The battle got bloody very quickly with the emergence of the monkeys, the Guardians plus two showing very little remorse to the abominations. Tooth and Pitch were the most brutal, or so they thought. Every now and then, Pitch caught glimpses of a certain shadow appearing and reappearing. Every now and then, he heard Rin’s absurd amount of laughter. The very sound was bone chilling.

The battle didn’t last long once the monkeys appeared and the plague spirits dissipated. The monkey men were more cowardly than those who’d enslaved them. They retreated quickly upon realizing their opponents were not reluctant in shedding their blood. Pitch couldn’t even remember witnessing this level of brutality amongst the Guardians. Not since the war that ended his reign. It was refreshing, tasting their distress and loath again after so long.

“Where’s Jack?” the twit suddenly asked. And soon his giddiness was clouded by his own fear.

Extending his shadows, he searched for the boy frantically. There was a moment of terror at the notion that the surviving beasts may have taken him. That terror was squelched once he located Jack. He didn’t take the time to alert the others that the winter spirit had been found. He simply teleported to him, leaving them wondering where the both of them went.

The state in which Pitch found Jack revived the panic inside him. Jack had his legs tucked under him as he stared at the corpse of a monkey man. Even Pitch was surprised at the condition the corpse: its throat had been torn out and a pool of blood had already soaked into the rainforest soil. Pitch dropped to his knees before the boy, ignoring the blood seeping into his own clothes and drawing the attention of the winter spirit away from the body before him and onto Pitch. As soon as the young Guardian realized he wasn’t alone anymore, Jack started rubbing at the blood on his hoodie, hands, neck, and face furiously. Pitch almost shuddered at the thought of Rin using Jack’s mouth to cause such damage to the monkey man’s throat. He went to touch the winter spirit’s hand, but the boy jerked away, squeezing his wild eyes shut and pulling his colorless hair. Pitch was practically digesting the boy’s anxiety and trauma, and it made him sick.

“I couldn’t fight them,” Jack whispered. His whole body was trembling. “I couldn’t fight them, so I told Rin . . . I let Rin . . . ,” he couldn’t finish. He was ready to sob, and that tore Pitch open.

“Jack—.”

“I can’t get the blood off,” the boy interrupted. “I can’t. It’s frozen. It won’t come off. It’s in my mouth. I can taste it. It won’t come off!” His eyes shot open again as he began clawing at his face, as if his nails could scrape the blood from his flesh.

“Jack, don’t,” Pitch begged, preparing to grab the boy’s hands. He thought better of it, though, knowing just what that would do to him while he was like this. He didn’t need the setback in his progress. Instead, he placed his hands on either side of Jack’s face.

Jack clenched his fists, his eyes shutting again as he shook. He began muttering something that seemed unintelligible at first. Soon Pitch could hear him saying, “Don’t let them find me like this,” over and over again.

“Jack, listen to me—.”

“Please don’t let—.”

“Jack—.”

“Don’t let them—.”

“Jack, please—.”

“Not like this—.”

“Jack Frost, listen to me right now.” That stopped the boy from muttering. He even opened his eyes a little to look at the Nightmare King. “You’re safe, do you hear me?” The boy hesitated, but soon nodded. “We’re going to get you cleaned up, alright?” Jack nodded again, then closed his eyes and leaned into Pitch’s chest. Pitch wrapped his arms around him, holding him tight as sobs began racking the boy’s body.

Pitch felt a familiar presence behind him. Rather, two familiar presences. He turned his head only a little to confirm who he thought was there. Sanderson and Seraphina were, in fact, behind him. Fortunately, Jack had not noticed their arrival. The two were courteous enough not to gawk at Rin’s handiwork, at least. Sanderson gestured to Jack, then used his sand to ask if he should put the boy to rest. Pitch nodded curtly, still wanting to keep Jack from realizing their presence. The Sandman made quick work of Jack, the winter spirit asleep in Pitch’s arms within seconds. Once his work was done, the little man walked away and left Seraphina and Pitch alone.

Pitch glanced up at Seraphina then. “You led him to us?” 

His daughter’s face was expressionless even as she stared at the body and nodded. “Figured he needed it.”

Pitch squinted. “The others?”

“They’re recovering. Regrettably, they trust you with their baby Guardian.”

Pitch and Seraphina stared each other down, and Pitch picked up on the centuries of anger and melancholy in his daughter. It was instinctual for him to want to comfort her, even now. But that wasn’t what she wanted. All he would be met with was rejection. “Why are you showing an interest in him?”

She pursed her lips the same way he did when he was thinking hard about something. “Maybe I don’t want him to have quite the rude awakening that I did when the shite hit the fan.”

Pitch sighed and looked away, frustrated. “You still think I repudiated you?”

“I was going to say no, you know. I was gonna tell the Man in the Moon to take his offer and shove it in not so many words. But you didn’t trust me to make my own decision.” Pitch shut his mouth and stared down at Jack’s sleeping form. He closed his eyes, fighting the fog teaming in his chest. It now spread to his head. He heard her sigh in disgust. “You haven’t changed. You still clam up when someone calls you out on your distrust.”

“Seraphina—.”

“Please. Just don’t.”

“I lost my temper—.”

“You think?”

“The Man in the Moon took everything from me!” he growled out at last. He checked to make sure Jack was still asleep before saying a little less aggressively, “I just knew he was going to try to take you too.”

Her face hardened as she struggled to hide her rage. Was it rage? No, it was confusion. He didn’t need to taste the emotion to identify it. He still knew his daughter after all. She was just like him in so many ways. Did she inherit anything from her mother? 

She said, “He didn’t succeed.” There was a pause before she added, “You were the one who pushed me away.”

“Seraphina—.”

“Don’t!” she snapped. Her shoulders shook as she struggled to maintain her composure. Her gaze kept dancing between Pitch and the body of the monkey man. Then she shut her eyes and evened out her tone with him. “To be honest, I was going to warn him,” she pointed at Jack, “of what to expect from you. I was gonna tell him what you might do in one of your fits of anger, what you might say to him should he be called away from your side to honor his oath. Instead, I’m going to tell you this.” He could see her wrestling with her feelings, the way he did when he had something to say but really didn’t want to have to say it. “Don’t make the same mistake twice.”

“Ser—?”

“Don’t play coy. You know what I’m talking about. Don’t do it. Try trusting someone, just once.” She rubbed her temples, muttering, “We can’t afford to face Nidhogg like this. We have to be ready, and that requires cooperation and group effort.”

Pitch sensed the turmoil within her, and couldn’t help but ask, “Does it hurt you so to face him again?”

“Stop.”

“What?”

“Stop trying to be my dad again.”

She stomped away at that, leaving him with a sleeping, bloody Jack Frost. And it was about to storm.



Sera stalked through corpses, reminded of the war that had torn her world asunder. The war that had eventually left her without an ally to look to for support. The war that had left her alone in these woods. She shook her head, felt her hands shaking as she lost control of her emotions. This happened sometimes, but she was usually alone when it happened. Why did this have to happen when she was with these people? These spirits had abandoned her, made her choose, forgotten her testimony to remain unbound to either party, forced her into a life of loneliness. They didn’t deserve to see her break. And him. How dare he pretend to care about her and who she was about to destroy!

She stalked through the Guardians, none of whom asking why she was in the state that she was in. Save for one, that is. She had never missed him following her and forcing her to talk.

“Sera?”

“No, Bunny.”

“Sera, what’s wrong?”

“Just leave me alone, Bun—.”

“No!” He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. “I’m right here. Talk to me!”

She glared at him for having stopped her dead in her tracks. His expression remained stern, however. He wasn’t going to leave her alone until she spoke. He would be waiting a very long time. “I don’t want to—.”

“If you don’t talk, you’ll be no better than him.” Bunny pointed back in his general direction.

She bristled all over and could hear the thunder crackling in the distance as her frustration grew. “Take that back.”

“No.”

The thunder grew louder. “Take. That. Back.”

“I won’t. Cooperate. You said that’s what we needed, so do it.”

“You EAVESDROPPER!” She launched herself at him, knocking him down onto his back. She sat on his chest, pulling her dagger from its sheath and touching the black metal to his chin. “TAKE IT BACK!”

“Hush, or everyone will hear you and find you holding that,” Bunny warned. He was still calm. Too calm. She regretted desensitizing him to her sudden attacks long ago, because right then she needed him to take her seriously and recant his statement.

“I’m nothing like him!” she growled, feeling her pupils dilate in the growing darkness.

“Says the gal holding her father’s dagger to my throat. If you hate him so much, why’d you keep it?”

“You heard everything I said. You don’t want me to talk. You just want to pester me.” She wanted to press the dagger’s tip further into his coat, but found herself frozen stiff. She couldn’t move or make herself do as her mind willed. She grit her teeth angrily as she instead returned the knife to its sheath, furious with herself for being unable to really hurt him.

“I want to make sure you’re not being hypocritical. I know you hate hypocrisy.”

“Why do both of you have to pretend you care about my wellbeing? At the same bloody time, no less,” she snarled, but she realized she didn’t have his attention. “Are you even listening to me?” His gaze remained distant. “Earth to bloody rabbit!”

“You . . . ,” he uttered, his paw reaching up to touch something at the nape of her neck. She stiffened when she realized what he was looking at. “You kept this too.”

She could just see out of the corner of her eye the magenta aster he pulled from the black mass that was her hair. She had rearranged it so that it was no longer behind her ear, but buried beneath her locks so that she didn’t have to notice it. The only flowers visible in her hair were the orchids. But yes, she had kept the one thing Bunny had given her when they were friends. The aster was his namesake, and it thrived in the bush that was her hair.

Closing her eyes, she turned her head to the side and tucked the flower back into its hiding spot. Standing up, she left Bunny on the ground. He sat up as she asked, “Why did you all have to come back? I was fine without you.”

“We wouldn’t have—.”

“You don’t need to answer. I just . . . I can’t do this. I can’t just go back to the way things used to be, no matter how much you might want it to.” She thought for a moment. “Or how much I might want it to.”

“Sera—.”

“I can’t talk about this with you anymore, Bunny. I already have to fight one person I used to love. Don’t add to it. Please.”

Bunny’s ears flattened against his head. “You fully intend to disappear again after this is over.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.

She turned her back on him so he couldn’t see her fighting the need to scream out of frustration and confusion. “And this time, none of you will know where to find me.” She prepared to leap into the trees. “You waited too long the last time.”

With that, she took her place in the canopy. Bunny was left with the rain falling down on his head.



She didn’t hate them, but she did resent them. That much, Bunny knew. He felt like a fool. Everything Mother Nature did had a definitive purpose. Why had it never occurred to Pitch that she had allowed him to know her location? That she had wanted them to find her?

She was right. They’d waited too long to try and fix what had been broken between her and the Guardians. Between her and Pitch. They’d only sought her out now because they’d needed her. Not because they wanted her to come back.

Bunny stared up at the clouded sky, wondering if Manny could still see them through the storm. “I’ll never understand why you do the things you do. But I hope you have a plan.”

Because once this was over, he was going to lose her again. And he didn’t think he could handle a second time. He could only imagine how his enemy Pitch felt.

**Author's Note:**

> You're getting three more updates after this one. I don't believe in waiting. I post when I can.
> 
> But you all knew that.
> 
> Shut up Alex.


End file.
